Saturday, September 17, 2011

I was lucky enough to meet Galen Rupp when he was 15 years old. He was slightly injured at the time and was doing his run workouts in a pool. The pool had a treadmill in the middle of it and Galen would run 13 miles on the treadmill. It was clear he was working towards something special and although Friday was not the end of that special it sure was special. I bring this up because I'm sure at some point on Friday Galen and or Alberto muttered these words "THIS IS IT".

These are really easy words to say but hard to live by unless you do it every day. Each day you have something that deserves this statement. It's the most important thing you have to do that day. It's the one thing that matters most. It's the one thing if you put all into it, you will get much out of it. The problem for most of us is we live busy lives and it feels like everything is a This is It moment. But it can't be that way.

It's said for the triathlete that you can't put everything into every workout. You have to be selective. If you are not you will over cook yourself. The same is true in the business world. If you try to put all into everything you'll end up getting half of what was available. The best is to be very selective during your day, your week and your year. The same is true about parenting. Everyday is important but there are key events where This is it, where your impact will be felt for years.

Now look at your busy life. You are a triathlete, a husband or wife, a parent, you have a job and you have other priorities. What's your This is It today?

Galen knew the World Championships were not the place to go after the American Record. It would have been a great place to do it, but the World Championship races have no pacers and tend to be very tactical in nature. The Diamond league meets are geared towards performance. The Brussels meet is known for fast times in the distance events. Galen and Alberto had this race pegged for months. They turned in stellar performances leading up to the meet in Brussels but Brussels was "THIS IS IT". You can bet there were workouts throughout the last 6 months that had a special note that said something like Brussels 2011.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

This year like any year has been filled with Failure. Although my Ironman St George result to many seemed like a success it was a failure to me. I wasn't close to my goals (however stretched they might have been) and worse than that I often failed to even compete. I was so bad my competition was a guy who was worried about making the cut off for the day.

In building running shoes, the failures have been many. The most recent has been heel problems. Notice the pictures below. Those are my feet and those are my heels. This was last week in a pair of top secret new shoes for next year. They are simply the best shoes we've ever made so I'm proud of that. But I'm not proud of that heel. Failure to the highest degree in running shoes.

Which leads me to our house. We sent Marco to a camp last year and were really impressed with his attitude coming out. What we learned though was that we need to work with him on the camp values to make them stick. He wanted to go again this year which was great. That mean's this camp that is all about his head was doing something. When he got home from camp Mary had the great idea of ordering all the camp materials. So we did, and received a couple great books, DVD's, posters and the 8 keys. Sunday Marco and I hung the 8 keys and the posters around the house where we would see them regularly. The one below caught my attention today.

This key is so right. Failure Leads to Success if you let it. If you let failure get you down you will stay down. But if you learn from your failure you will grow. I can tell you that I hope to fail often in the future. I can also tell you that the Zoot heel will be fixed to success and that Ironman racing may not ever truly be a success but I'm willing to give it another shot.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Time sure is flying. It's now been 2 years since I began working for this great brand. It's so much fun being the stewards of such a cool brand. It is our job to leave it better off than it was when we got here.
What a way to celebrate 2 years than watching Jordan Rapp win Ironman Canada. In so many ways Jordan is what Zoot is all about. Finding solutions for athletes so they can fulfill their dreams. That's how the brand started and that's how we carry on.